Some History Regarding SCOTUS Nominations
The NYT provides the following: Supreme Court Nominees Considered in Election Years Are Usually Confirmed
Since 1900, the Senate has voted on eight Supreme Court nominees during an election year. Six were confirmed. But several of those were for seats that had become vacant in the previous year.
Along with the factoid, there is a very useful chart that is worth reviewing.
Additionally:
The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn within 25 days.
So, on the one hand, history and tradition dictate that there should at least be a vote sometimes in the next 11 months.
On the other, I suspect that neither history nor tradition will end up guiding outcomes this year.
Aren’t Conservatives, by definition, supposed to respect history and tradition? Le sigh.
@gVOR08: On the one hand, yes. On the other, we use that term loosely in US politics and, really, power calculations frequently trump such things in any event.
Why would a Conservative party be interested in history or tradition?
Oh…wait…er….
I think what you meant to type is that Republicans are NOT Conservatives, they only claim to be.
I do think the “days to a vote” metric is somewhat misleading here. As an NPR feature notes:
I think that Obama is entitled to nominate a qualified successor and get a vote. But long delays are not extraordinary.
@James Joyner: Fair enough.
@James Joyner:
The fact that you can only point to one since the Civil War speaks to them being pretty extraordinary.
Wasn’t the Nixon case unique because the court was ruling in the criminality of Nixon administration actions? Or do inhale the time frame mixed up?
How many of those election year appointments involved the President and the Senate belonging to different parties?
It wasn’t the GOP that turned Bork into a verb.
Chickens coming home to roost and all that.
@Just Me:
Bork was a specific candidate with specific problems. If Obama had nominated a rabid left wing justice with views FAR outside mainstream jurisprudence then a Bork type response would be justified. This sight unseen response to ANY candidate regardless their political or judicial bent is beyond the pale and well beyond chickens coming home to roost.
@Grewgills: really, kagan/sotomayer are considered “mainstream/neutral” or something?
also, didn’t obama filibuster alito – that’s not picking up much msm buzz for some reason.
but anyhoo- lamus duckus has done enough damage with his like minded nominee’s, let the people decide who gets in next via the election.
@bill:
Where in the Constitution does it specify that in an election year a president should leave a Supreme Court seat vacant for nearly one year because the opposition party wants another president to nominate a justice with the ‘correct’ ideology and judicial philosophy?